WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration fired most of the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace and sent its new leader into the Washington headquarters of the independent organization on Monday, in its latest effort targeting agencies tied to foreign assistance work.
The remaining three members of the group's board — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Defense University President Peter Garvin — fired President and CEO George Moose on Friday, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.
An executive order that President Donald Trump signed last month targeted the organization, which was created by Congress over 40 years ago, and others for reductions.
Current USIP employees said staffers from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency entered the building despite protests that the institute is not part of the executive branch. USIP called the police, whose vehicles were outside the building Monday evening.
USIP is a congressionally funded independent nonprofit that works to advance U.S. values in conflict resolution, ending wars and promoting good governance.
Moose vowed legal action, saying that “what has happened here today is an illegal takeover by elements of the executive branch of a private nonprofit.”
He said the institute's headquarters, located across the street from the State Department, is not a federal building. Speaking to reporters after leaving the building, Moose noted that “it was very clear that there was a desire on the part of the administration to dismantle a lot of what we call foreign assistance, and we are part of that family.”
The DOGE workers gained access after several unsuccessful attempts Monday and after having been turned away Friday, a senior U.S. Institute of Peace official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Trump targeted the organization and a few others in a Feb. 19 executive order that aims to shrink the size of the federal government. The administration has since moved to fire and cancel programs at some of those organizations, following its dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development and slashing of other agencies, including the Education Department.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly pointed to USIP's "noncompliance" with Trump's order.
After that, “11 board members were lawfully removed, and remaining board members appointed Kenneth Jackson acting president," she said. "Rogue bureaucrats will not be allowed to hold agencies hostage. The Trump administration will enforce the President’s executive authority and ensure his agencies remain accountable to the American people.”
Jackson had been seen earlier Monday trying to get into the nonprofit's building.
Moose said the organization had been speaking with DOGE since last month, trying to explain its independent status. Speaking of Trump, he said, “I can’t imagine how our work could align more perfectly with the goals that he has outlined: keeping us out of foreign wars, resolving conflicts before they drag us into those kinds of conflicts."
DOGE has expressed interest in the organization for weeks but had been rebuffed by lawyers who argued that the institute’s status protected it from the kind of reorganization that is occurring in other federal agencies.
On Friday, DOGE members arrived with two FBI agents but left after the institute's lawyer told them of USIP’s “private and independent status,” the organization said in a statement that day.
Chief of security Colin O’Brien said police on Monday helped DOGE members enter the building and that the private security team for the organization had its contract canceled.
The nonprofit says it was created by Congress in 1984 as an “independent nonprofit corporation,“ and it does not meet U.S. Code definitions of “government corporation,” “government-controlled corporation” or “independent establishment."
Also named in Trump's executive order were the U.S. African Development Foundation, a federal agency that invests in African small businesses; the Inter-American Foundation, a federal agency that invests in Latin America and the Caribbean; and the Presidio Trust, which oversees a national park site next to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
The African Development Foundation, which also unsuccessfully tried to keep DOGE staff from entering its offices in Washington, went to court, but a federal judge ruled last week that removing most grants and most staff would be legal. The president of the Inter-American Foundation sued Monday to block her firing in February by the Trump administration.
___
AP reporter Thalia Beaty in New York contributed to this report.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Credit: AP